Pleasant Manners

PLEASANT MANNERS. It is a pleasure to meet people who are pleasant and kind; who do not seek to extinguish you with disdain or humiliate you with indifference. People can be overpleasant as well as over- bearing, but the former is infinitely preferable. Habit has some- thing to do with a person's behavior, although disposition is the strongest element. Money enters into the life of some, and makes them haughty and overbearing, who, lacking it, would have been, kind and considerate. Jesus inveighed most strongly against pride and haughtiness, and said the Publican was justified rather than the proud Pharisee, notwithstanding the lengthy prayers of the latter. In view of the shortness of life, and its many unavoidable cares and troubles, we think it is a wise thing to cultivate a pleasant manner toward all. "0, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" must be an inscrutible puzzle from any true and just point of view. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," is as true today, as in the long ago when it was written. Pope calls pride the never-failing vice of fools, and wisely, too, I think. There is in pride and haughtiness a disennobling of men beyond computation. If pride is not vice, it can lay little claim to virtue. Why, then, be proud and haughty? Rich or poor, high or low, should shun its narrowing spirit, and learn to practice a pleas- ant manner, and a courteous spirit of kindness towards all whom they may meet in this world. Mrs. Ida Prentice.